Computer networks are used to transmit data from one client computer to another. A computer network generally includes a server connected to a plurality of client computers and other communication devices. The server controls the operation of the client computers and transmits data from the server to other communication devices. The other communication devices may transmit data from the server to a server in another network.
Videoconferencing, multimedia applications, and real-time audio and video applications have recently become popular, and these applications require the transmission of large amounts of data over existing computer networks. As these applications become even more popular, existing computer networks experience problems handling the increasing volume of data that is being transmitted across the networks. The networks become saturated, which results in slower transmission of data across the networks.
In an attempt to address this problem, administrators and owners of computer networks utilize expensive transmission facilities to increase the amount of data that the computer networks can transmit. A problem facing computer network administrators is how to allocate the expense of the additional equipment to computer network users.
In the past, users have been uniformly charged for access to the computer networks regardless of the amount of data transmitted or received by each user. However, such billing practices are perceived by some to be unfair as well as inefficient As an alternative, network administrators could track how much data each user transmits across the computer network and impose higher charges only on users who transmit more data. However, this approach is not without difficulties. With many different users logging on and off a network at many different locations throughout the day, tracking each user's usage of the network requires the storage of large amounts of data. In addition, the time required to process this data can be lengthy, and such processing delays sending bills to network users. Finally, such a billing procedure requires storage and processing equipment to store and process the billing data, which results in additional expense.